Britain says former Russian spy poisoned with nerve agent

SALISBURY, England, (Reuters) – A nerve agent was used to deliberately poison a former Russian double agent and his daughter, Britain’s top counter-terrorism officer said on Wednesday, in a case that threatens to further damage London’s ties with Moscow.

Sergei Skripal, once a colonel in Russia’s GRU military intelligence service, and his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia, were found slumped unconscious on a bench outside a shopping centre in the southern English city of Salisbury on Sunday afternoon.

Both remain critically ill and a police officer who attended the scene is also in a serious condition in hospital.